The Indian rupee touched a fresh record low of 72 against the US dollar today. This is the currency's seventh consecutive fall, its longest losing streak since May 2016. It was trading at 72.07 a dollar at 12:40 pm, down by 0.40 percent from its Wednesday close.

The fall comes amid US President Trump's decision to impose further tariffs on China. The US administration now plans to impose further $200 billion of tariffs on Chinese imports as early as this week, and this would mark a significant escalation in the trade dispute between the countries. Experts suggest that if Beijing retaliates, its yuan which has lost over 6 percent in the last three month, could decline further.

Meanwhile, the markets reacted negatively, to the fall of the rupee, below the 72 mark. The Sensex which was trading higher for the most part of the day, fell by 48 points, following the drop in the rupee.

The benchmark index was last seen trading at below the 38,000 levels at 37,988 points. Among the top losers from the Sensex were Hindalco, ONGC and Axis bank from the Nifty stocks. The Nifty has already fallen 300 points from its peak levels.

Commenting on the rupee's weakness, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at a briefing following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday said that India's macro fundamentals are strong and resilient. "India's foreign exchange reserves are comfortable by global standards and sufficient to mitigate any undue volatility in the foreign exchange market," he said. He further said that he was closely watching any developments related to Turkey that started the global emerging market meltdown in August.